


On a balcony with champagne lips

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 3, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: It's New Year's Eve, and Beth has to work. She gets an unexpected, expected visitor.-Set during s3. Based around a couple of spoilers!
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 8
Kudos: 130





	On a balcony with champagne lips

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: 16. New Years kiss :’)

At least these days, she hears him.

The thought of that probably deserves some unpacking, because two years ago, she never would’ve, especially not over the whir of the printing press, not with the turned down volume of Annie’s Money Laundering Spotify playlist (Rihanna’s _Bitch Better Have My Money_ is on it _four_ times, which Annie promises was both intentional and a gift to the operation because it made them seem a lot cooler than they were). Still, somehow, she hears the metallic scratch of the key he made her cut for him in the shopfront door, the careful pad of his feet across the linoleum, and then the door here, to the backroom, cracking open.

It gives her the time to prepare. To straighten out the rows of cash, wipe down any drops of chemicals off the table, to curl her hair behind her ears and then huff, annoyed at herself for doing any of it. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. He gets what he gets.

He seems to agree, leaning in the doorframe, his sharp features drawn, eyeing her almost lazily, and Beth barely offers him a look before she runs another sheet of wrapping paper through the printing press.

“You need to get a hobby,” she tells him, and Rio snorts, tilts his head forwards, gesturing to the whir of the machine in front of them.

“Shouldn’t I be sayin’ that to you?” he drawls. “Figured you woulda been all about the New Year’s plans tonight. Drawin’ up your resolutions and what not.”

Beth rolls her eyes, unamused as Rio rocks back and forth a little against the doorframe, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat, his beanie pulled low down over his ears, seeming to consider it.

“Number one – try a new recipe every week,” he says, voice cloying, mocking. “Number two – spend more time with _the girls_. Number three – be my own boss.”

He pops the ‘b’, hisses the ‘s’, and Beth grits her teeth, flushing, still feeding the wrapping paper through the printing press, making money that should still be _hers_ , dammit, but she knows will be lining his wallet before the week is out.

Thing is, she _did_ have plans for New Years Eve, and she’s pretty sure he knew it, what with the way he may as well have skipped into Paper Porcupine the day before Christmas Eve to up the demand to three times the fake cash they usually gave him. He’d practically glowed as he’d said it too, and Beth had squirmed furiously at him from behind the counter, hearing Annie splutter terrified, desperate behind her.

(“Ain’t it just the most wonderful time of year,” he’d hummed. “Everyone’s spendin’ money and I’m makin’ it.”

He’d laughed, tickled, before making his way back to the staffroom to no doubt steal a part of the roof of the gingerbread house Beth had made for the employees in there.)

Still, she’d sucked it up. This was all her mess after all, and she’d told Ruby not to cancel her party and told Annie to go, and she’d stayed here alone, printing row after row of cash, knowing, despite herself, that he’d show up, just like she thinks he’d known that it would be her here, alone, too.

“You got me,” Beth says dryly, readjusting her apron, and she clocks it, the way Rio’s eyes dart down, watching her shift it, watching it tighten around her body, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“Figured you’d have taken the night off,” she continues. “Played Gru while all us minions did your dirty work for you.”

And god it feels good, to see the look on his face then, to remind him of Marcus, to remind herself that Rio knows exactly what a silly franchise like _Despicable Me_ and minions are, to remind him that she knows that he knows it. That she’s fed his son minion mac and cheese with his ex while they hung out at her house. She smiles a little too sweetly, and Rio sucks in his lips.

“Deadline’s creepin’ forwards, sweetheart,” Rio says, changing the subject, suddenly pushing off the doorframe, striding into the backroom, and Beth practically has to swallow her fluttering heart. God, she can still barely look at him, when he comes this close to her, when he pushes into her space, can barely _breathe_. She hates that she knows his cologne better than she knows her sister’s scented moisturiser, hates that she knows the smell of _him_ somehow better than she knows the smell of her own husband, and god - - she refuses to let it show.

She knows he sees it anyway.

“You gonna be ready?” he purrs, and Beth turns away from him, quickly as she can.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she says stiffly, staring at the money being spat out of the printing press, and she feels him shift behind her, feels him practically lean over her, a hair’s breadth away.

“Had to be sure. Don’t know if you know this about yourself, but you ain’t exactly predictable,” he replies, so close to her that she can feel his breath on the shell of her ear, and Beth fidgets forwards, hating the heat of it, hating the heat of _him_ , hating the way it sparks her nerves and pools in her chest, belly, lower, and she’s spinning around, furious, before she can help herself.

“What?” she spits, and god he’s _so close_. “Are you looking for your new year’s kiss or something, because –”

And then it’s so sudden.

The feeling of his fingers running down her cheek, his dark eyes drinking her in, and god, it’s just like he used to do, before everything, and Beth just - - she _trembles_ , quivers like she’s in a regency novel, and there’s a part of her that’s mortified, and there’s a part of her that’s so full of need she doesn’t know what to do with herself, and she glares up at him before she can help herself, and she hates that she saw it – the brief flicker of softness on his face before he slips that mask back on.

“Bet you’d let me if I was, huh?” he says, joking at her, making fun of her, and she has to look away from him as he lets his fingers rest at her chin, as he lifts a thumb to brush her lower lip. She can almost imagine it, _remember_ it, his lips on hers, and her eyelashes flutter shut, and she knows she’ll be mad at herself in the morning, that she’ll hurt, that she’ll be so fucking _embarrassed_ , but the thought of even - - for just a second - -

Her tongue darts out before she can help it, brushing against the rough surface of his thumb, and he yanks his hand away so sharply it’s like she’s burned him. He cusses loudly, hoarsely, striding almost aggressively away from her.

“Four,” he says suddenly, and Beth blinks hard, still trying to catch her breath, rubs her rubber gloves on the waist of her apron.

“What?”

“Order’s gone up,” he tells her, not looking at her. “It’s four times the order now, not three.”

And Beth just - - reels back, the air sucked from her all over again, and she’s shaking her head, frustrated tears building at the corners of her eyes.

“You can’t - -”

“Yeah, I can,” he spits at her. “Happy New Year, ma. Have a drink for me.”

With that, he turns on his heel, out of the backroom, out of the store, and he stops only once, enough she can see him through the glass window, his eyes back on her, a look in them she can’t place, and she meets it, holds it, but then he’s gone, and Beth - -

Beth gets to work. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's 'New Year's Kiss'


End file.
